South Korea looks to build on November Tour Success in 2017

The South Korea team’s preparation for their first 2017 Asian Rugby Championship match this Saturday against Japan has gone “reasonably well” says Head Coach John Walters. “We have an even balance of youth and experience with the more experienced players contributing well to the learning environment we are trying to cultivate.”

The difficulty of Saturday’s task is not lost on South Korea’s two Kiwi-born coaches, John Walters and Assistant Dion Muir, who took over the reins of the South Korean national team last year. Japan, coached by Jamie Joseph who is another Kiwi, has dominated Asian Rugby over the past decade and shocked the rugby world in 2015 by beating the then 2nd ranked Springboks at the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Coach Walters believes South Korea’s performance in last November’s tour to Chile will give them confidence. South Korea went down 30-12 in the first match in Santiago but rallied back from a 36-7 deficit in the second game to pull off an astonishing 38-36 come-from-behind victory. He hopes to build on that performance “We have retained the core of that squad so we expect to improve with each game.”

According to KRU President Sanghyug Moon, this year’s ARC competition has added importance to South Korea, given the 2018 winner will progress to the next stage of RWC 2019 qualifying. John Walters adding that “It’s very important to us that we make progress. We have a long term plan regarding the 2019 RWC which starts this Saturday. We need to learn from our experiences during this year’s ARC in order for us to be in a good position for next year’s competition. “